Wauchula, FL has a B safety grade (64/100) with a violent crime rate of 282 per 100,000, 20% below the national average.
Wauchula is a small municipal reporter (4,958 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with FL and U.S. context.
Wauchula, FL carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 20% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Wauchula, FL shows violent crime at 282.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 867.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 20% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
The verdict
Wauchula earns a B safety grade: violent crime runs 20% below the U.S. average, placing it higher-crime than most U.S. cities.
Based on 14 reported violent incidents in a population of 4,958. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-count caution
Wauchula reported 14 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 4,958. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Wauchula's 282.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Casselberry (282.4), Palatka (268.1), Stuart (308.3), Gulfport (309.9). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 51.2% of reported property offenses in Wauchula, against a cohort median of 81.8%. The remainder is burglary (18) and motor vehicle theft (3). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 24.6% of the 57 Part I offenses reported in Wauchula for 2024, against a median of 13.3% across comparable Florida cities — a gap of 11.3 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Position in the state cohort
At 282.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Wauchula ranks 48 of 126 — above 78 of the 125 other Florida cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +46.5% against the cohort median of 192.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 251.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 282.4 in 2024 (+12.3%). The highest observed value was 420.6 in 2022 and the lowest 0.0 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Wauchula's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 14 reported violent incidents in a population of 4,958. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 43 | 867.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 22 | 443.7 |
| Burglary | 18 | 363 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 3 | 60.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 14 | 282.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 12 | 242 |
| Robbery | 2 | 40.3 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 4,773 | 251.4 | 2178.9 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 4,757 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 4,993 | 420.6 | 1522.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 4,966 | 342.3 | 1570.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 4,958 | 282.4 | 867.3 |
Wauchula's crime figures on this page originate from Wauchula Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
This agency reports via the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS): aggregate monthly offense counts rather than incident-level detail.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Florida cities closest to Wauchula in population. Their populations run from 4,036 to 5,610, against 4,958 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Florida cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Wauchula's 282.4/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Wauchula is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Wauchula's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Wauchula, FL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Wauchula is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (4,958 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.